The Day I was a Polling Agent - Part 2

…Part 2 – Election fever bug in the air

Official campaigning started right after nomination and no time was to be wasted in the next 13 days. We called for first ceramah a few days after nomination. Given that it was on working-day night, the turn-out was fair. Our second ceramah clashed with BN and since our Bilik Gerakan was quite close to theirs, in the interest of security, the police decided to cancel our permit and gave it to the BN guys. Nothing new there since the police had to be fair to them. Determined to hold the ceramah anyway, we moved to a new location and, due to last minute change of venue, the turn-out was less than expected. Not that I mind because there was plenty of extra nasi ayam left.

Two days before the D-day we set up our pondok panas under a big tent by the roadside close to the polling centre. The ruling party had already set up their pondok taking the best spot right next to the junction going to the school which would be used for polling. Their pondok was an airconditioned portacabin sitting firmly on concrete foundation under big blue aluminium roof. We were told that it cost 10 thousand while our pondok was a makeshift tent rented at a cost of around 500 ringgit for 3 days. Clearly we are a poor man’s party!

According to EC rules, the location of pondok panas has to be no less than 50 meters from the polling centre. A draw was done by an EC representative to allocate which party got which spot to build their pondok. We made best use of whatever spot was given to us. Again we set up big screen by the roadside and treated motorists and passers by to our nightly recorded ceramah. While people were watching the ceramah, our volunteers distributed pamphlets and leaflets to housing areas. We got plenty of materials, which came from various sources, to be distributed to houses around our taman. Most were about condemning the present government including pictures of Pak Lah cosying up with some beautiful women – pictures which were widely distributed over the Internet just before the elections. Some were in Chinese and Tamil with pictures of pigs and clippings of articles from Chinese newspapers which we could not understand. We had to practise some form of censorship, lest our aggrasive approach would backfire. Personally I’d rather dissiminate information about our manifesto and what changes we would bring if we manage to govern. But then again, may be it’s fair afterall because they even used taxpayers-funded TV and radio to paint bad image of Opposition leaders.

While distributing the campaign materials, some got rare hostile response but mostly we were given an encouraging smile. At times, dogs barked at us when we approached the postbox in front of the house to slot in the leaflets when their masters were fast asleep. We could tell from meeting people around the housing area that the Indians were very angry with the Government’s treatment of the Hindraf affairs and their own leader, Samy Vellu’s response to it. Many vowed to support the opposition parties as a sign of protest. Their leaders even came to our pondok and promised that he would urge his people to support opposition candidates. The Chinese were less political prefering not to take sides. As business people, they are very pragmatic and would support any party that wins.

The state seat (DUN) in my area was contested by ex-UKM lecturer representing PAS and a contractor Datuk from UMNO. PAS choice was very appropriate as this constituency included two major public universities, a number of IPTs and government research centres. This area probably has the most educated voters and PhDs in the whole of Malaysia. For parliamentary seat, the fight was between BN’s MCA candidate and DAP. The BN candidate was a middle age man while the DAP candidate was a 27 year-old, beautiful single woman lawyer. Her campaign poster was mistaken for a shampoo advertisement! The choice was sooo obvious! They did not even need to campaign hard. But in the spirit of cooperation, we helped look after the rocket posters as well.

There were no untoward incidents in our area. No reports of tearing down opponents posters or bringing down of banners. This I think was a sign of maturity in our politics. In the days leading to the 8th, slowly the roadside turned into green and blue walls of posters and banners especially around junctions and roundabouts. The election fever bug was in the air everywhere.

...to be continued in Part 3